The 2019 Boston Red Sox keep on continuing to show how inconsistent they are as a team, it’s showing how much their pitching staff needs to improve.
The Boston Red Sox are just beginning a stretch of 21 straight against the AL East. If they want to start slimming the Yankees lead down a bit or catch up to the Rays, the time is now. It’s no longer time to wait, they have to start playing more consistently.
They’ve been exactly the opposite within the first two games of this 21 game stretch.
Michael Chavis started the fireworks off on Monday, hitting the first grand slam of his career way over the monster. The offense would go on to score 10 runs. However, the bullpen had something to say about that. Ryan Brasier would give up four earned runs in the 8th, with two of those runs coming off of Matt Barnes, who would surrender a two-run single to Freddy Galvis. The offense would just hang on to win 10-8, with Brandon Workman working a 1-2-3 ninth to get the save.
Xander Bogaerts would start off the fireworks in game 2, this time a solo shot into the monster seats for his 21st of the year. Andrew Cashner gave up 5 runs on 8 hits in 5 innings in his Red Sox debut. Yuck. The offense would battle back and tie the score at four, only to give up six runs and lose the game 10-4. Not what you want.
This team needs to get it together. To say it has been one hell of a rollercoaster would be a massive understatement. The 2019 Red Sox cannot get on a hot stretch for the life of them, as it’s always one step forward two steps back with these guys. Many people have given up on the division and are starting to talk about who the Wild card starter should be. Forget the Wild Card game, this team doesn’t even have a playoff spot at the moment. That is absolutely ridiculous.
There are plenty of positives to go around, as guys like Xander and Rafael Devers have been unreal all year, and reigning MVP Mookie Betts is starting to heat up. But there are just way too many negatives to go around as well.
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The pitching is just a mess. Cashner is looking like he fits right in with this unreliable pitching staff. Rick Porcello is awful, Chris Sale has not been himself, and Nathan Eovaldi is now forced to go save the bullpen which might not even be enough. What that means is Dave Dombrowski has to go get a reliever and yet another starter.
I’m not going to sit here and say Cashner will be as bad as he was in his debut from now on, and that Sale won’t get back to normal, but I won’t sugarcoat this either. Those two need to get it together, and so does the whole bullpen (minus Brandon Workman). Eovaldi can certainly help, but as I said above, he probably won’t be enough to save the whole pen. It’s not a matter of who is out there for Boston to acquire, but who they will need to give up in order to acquire said player.
This 21-game stretch is incredibly important. You have to beat up on the teams you’re supposed to beat up on, aka the Blue Jays and Orioles, and win about half (hopefully more than half) your games against teams like the Rays and Yankees. The first two games of this long stretch are in the books. Within these next 19, this team needs to show who they really are. They need to come out and show that they are the defending world series champions and not some fake contender.
You can’t worry about what the teams ahead of you do, just win. As long as they can do that, they’ll be fine. Just win.